


Damian Rises (Again)

by hauntedlittledoll



Series: Robin Arise Project [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman Incorporated (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Amnesia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Life Model Decoys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2828879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/hauntedlittledoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin never truly dies.</p><p>Further (fix it & celebratory) prompt fills in honor of Robin 5.0 . . . Damian Wayne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. These are Not the Droids You're Looking for

**Author's Note:**

> Word Count: 418
> 
> Title Credit: George Lucas’ Star Wars.
> 
> Prompt: Written for anonymous – "Cover-Up Idea: Barbara and Damian had planned to take down Leviathan. Using their tech/mechanical skills, they created a droid that looks just like Damian, which they can control remotely. The droid was what was “killed” while Damian secretly infiltrates his mother’s organization to take it down. After his mission is complete, he returns to Babs, who brings him back to the Batfamily."

“Absolutely not,” Barbara announced, without even turning around.  “You have an entire cave, a mansion, and more safe houses than I can count.  Keep your disturbing trophies out of my space.”

“Tt,” her small guest muttered.  “This is not a trophy, Gordon.”

Barbara cast a quick, derisive glance at the burnt out pile of circuitry and robotic limbs that had been dumped on the floor of her van.  “It looks like a trophy to me.  _No.”_   Team Batgirl had been significantly down-sized in terms of manpower and resources.  She refused to allot even an inch of space to some grubby second-rate robot that Alfred wouldn’t let into the Bat Cave.

Damian ignored her, crawling under the makeshift-console to tinker with his find.

Barbara considered ignoring him in return for a few precious moments before deciding that the fall-out wouldn’t be worth it.

Bruce would blame her if Damian managed to electrocute himself, and Dick would be unbearable for everyone involved.

Regretfully logging off, Barbara inched back carefully so that she didn’t knock over the first aid kit or her spare suit and after negotiating with the available floor space, she even managed to crouch next to Damian.

“Okay, Boy Wonder, I bite—if it isn’t a trophy, what the heck is it?”

“The previous owner called it a _Life Model Decoy_ and it was used in suicide missions,” Damian answered, handing over the components of an arm.  “I believe that it may be the key to bringing down my mother’s organization.”

Barbara pushed her hair behind one ear and prodded a joint warily.  “Damian, this is a piece of crap.”

“I am aware of that, Gordon.  The Titans spend a great deal of time putting down lackluster robots.”  Well, that explained where he had come by the thing at least.  “This,” Damian indicated the panel he had opened in the back of the head, “is a particularly poor example.”

“And you’re going to use it to defeat your mother, leading STEM role model for villainous little girls, how?” Babs absently corrected the port alignments in front of her.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  This is a travesty against modern science,” Damian sneered.  “However, _you_ are a programmer of infamous repute, and _I_ am a mechanic.  We could do better.”

This was probably true.

Barbara paused, reconsidering Tim’s recent mission reports and Damian’s interest.  A robotic doppelganger could pursue otherwise suicidal objectives, and if it was lifelike enough … even delay reprisal through its apparent demise.  “Who are we duplicating?”

“Me.”


	2. And I'm the Reason that You're Standing Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 292
> 
> Title Credit: Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Once More with Feeling"
> 
> Prompt: Written for anonymous – Resurrection: Anything involving Alfred, who is willing to sacrifice ANYTHING for Bruce to not have to lose another member of his immediate family.

“Your resources impress even me, Mr. Pennyworth,” the immortal informs him with one aristocratically arched brow.  “Does the detective know about this little visit?”

Alfred Pennyworth is not impressed.  He has served men and women more powerful than Ra’s al Ghul, infinitely nobler, and on occasion … just as dangerous.  No, Alfred Pennyworth does not have time for the little games of the class he serves.

Master Bruce does not know of his butler’s deceit.  The man’s quest has taken him across the world and into the company of individuals that will ruin the Batman if given the opportunity.  Alfred needed just one phone call to achieve an audience with the man across the desk.

Alfred doesn’t answer.  He simply reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and withdraws the slim case stored there.

Ra’s receives it with interest, thumbing the catch carelessly as if a mysterious package from one of his enemies is no threat to him.  Perhaps it isn’t.  Perhaps it could be with the resources of the League so carelessly squandered.

It is not Alfred’s place to inquire.  He is simply here to further a mutual interest.

Within the case are two carefully-nestled vials—Batman’s insurance policy.  The Lazarus Pits may have been destroyed, but the detective in Master Bruce took samples to study and perhaps one day even use against Ra’s al Ghul.

Alfred does not wait for the villain to make the usual assumptions and offers that the butler has never cared for.  He simply reassumes his great coat and hat.

“I am in the habit of taking a late tea at a nearby café when I’m in London,” he comments idly as he straightens his gloves.  “Young Master Damian knows which one.”


	3. Morbid and Creepifying, I Got No Problem with

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 998
> 
> Title Credit: Joss Whedon’s Firefly
> 
> Prompt: Written for kiragecko – Tim brings Damian back in time for Dick’s birthday (I care not about HOW he is resurrected).

“Happy birthday,” Dick muttered, double-checking the address.  This was looking more and more like a trap than a birthday gift—these were not streets they had much reason to frequent out-of-costume—but Tim had sounded legitimately offended when Dick demanded a code word (which had still been dutifully provided)

Not a trap.

Maybe Tim and Jason had teamed-up this year.  It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen in recent memory.

“At least he remembered, Grayson,” Dick scolded himself as he chose the stairs over the decrepit elevator.

It wasn’t that Tim forgot birthdays (other than his own), but Tim had been working _every_ shift the last few weeks.  And maybe Bruce was too busy training the newbies to notice, but Dick had a good idea of what Tim looked like when obsessed with some secret project.

Dick supposed that he should be relieved; a birthday gift couldn’t be half as dangerous as Tim’s usual diversions.

Someone with a sense of humor had used permanent marker to add a third six to the apartment number.  Dick checked the address one last time, and reluctantly knocked.

“It’s open!” his brother yelled from inside.

That gave Dick pause; this was a neighborhood where doors were kept locked.

The acrobat finally shrugged and obeyed.  _Moving forward_ , he reminded himself again.  _Living life without a net._

The spotless living area would have been cramped if there had been a single stick of furniture in it.  Blackout shades on the windows and four expensive deadbolts were an ominous touch, however, and Dick swiftly tracked Tim’s voice down the hall, pressing lightly against what he presumed to be the bedroom door.

“Just you wait,” the teenager was whispering gleefully.  “You’re gonna be in so much trouble.”

 _Rescue,_ Dick’s mind supplied as he reached for the collapsible bo staff in his jacket.  _Or Jason.  It could be Jason._

Dick kicked in the door anyway and immediately swung the staff out to its full length as he confronted the utter lack of threat.

Not even Jason, and the zip-tied figure on the futon was too small to be Tim.

It was too small to be Tim, because _Damian_ wasn’t Tim.

Said-teenager now hovered at Dick’s side, tugging the weapon out of the older vigilante’s hands.  “Happy birthday, Dick,” Tim added helpfully, pointing at his growling captive with the weapon-turned-teaching-aid.

Words utterly failed.  Dick moved forward soundlessly, hitting his knees and catching Damian’s face in his hands, tracing familiar cheekbones, eyebrows, ears before falling to Damian’s shoulders as Dick continued to stare.

Damian looked away, making that tell-tale clicking noise under his breath.

Dick hugged him then.  He pulled the younger boy off the couch and into his arms.  Tim made an agreeable humming noise as he slipped around and cut the zip-tie so that Damian could return the embrace.  Dick didn’t care if Damian hugged him back or not; the acrobat was as hard-pressed to let go as he was to form actual words.  But the tween hesitantly wrapped his arms around Dick’s mid-section, and Dick buried his face in Damian’s hair, and inhaled for the confirmation of just one more sense that this wasn’t a hallucination or a dream.

Damian smelled good.

No, Damian smelled _good_ … like he had used Dick’s shampoo which would have meant that the kid had been in his apartment …

“What the hell?” Dick forced out, pushing Damian out at arm’s length.  “What the _hell?_ ” he repeated, shaking the kid for good measure.  Damian paled as he floundered for words at the expression on Dick’s face.

“I didn’t—it wasn’t the Pit.  Father …”

“What were you doing in my shower?” Dick demanded over the anxious reassurances.  Damian shut up, looking gravely concerned for Dick’s mental state.  Tim was laughing, doubled-over on the edge of the futon.  “How long have you been back?!”

“Two months,” Tim answered promptly.  “Your little stalker problem?  Not a stalker—Damian’s been trailing you around Gotham.”

Dick blinked.  “I said I would handle that, Timmy,” he accused.  The threat of a stalker had been a security concern, of course, but Dick hadn’t wanted to risk any of his friends or family.  He was—for lack of a better word—outed as a vigilante now.  It was his mess to clean up.

“Your birthday was coming up,” Tim flapped his hand dismissively.  “I looked into it, chased the offender around Gotham a couple times, couldn’t get close, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why …” Tim trailed off, prodding Damian with his foot.  “Until I realized that the only one of us not accounted for may not be as dead as we thought.”

“I told you, Drake, I was—”

“That doesn’t matter,” Dick cut him off.  _“It doesn’t matter._   What were you doing shadowing me?”

“I was _busy_ ,” Damian repeated tightly, “not completely cut off from civilization.  I heard the news, and came immediately.  You were being foolish, Grayson. You needed protection.”

Somehow in Damian’s mind, that was how it worked … with a child protecting the adult.  Dick had been trying to change that.  Bruce had been trying to change that.  They would keep trying.

For now:

“I needed you more,” Dick insisted, and hauled Damian into another hug.

Damian grumbled against his chest, but did not struggle.  Dick pressed his nose into spiky hair again for another inhale of his own shampoo, and then peered over Damian’s head to where Tim sat cross-legged on the couch now, smiling fondly at them both.  Shifting Damian slightly to the side, Dick struck swiftly with a desperate lunge.

There was some shouting then, a little wrestling, and they all ended up on the floor, but Dick emerged victorious with a little brother clasped in each arm.  If Jason showed up for cake and ice cream tonight, Dick would demand a hug from him too.  He deserved it.

It was his birthday.


	4. And It's Both Cradled You and Crushed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 710
> 
> Title Credit: Snow Patrol’s “Take Back the City”
> 
> Prompt: Written for anonymous – Resurrection idea: Damian digs himself out of his grave, but has some sort of amnesia/brain damage, like Jason in canon. After wandering around Gotham for a short time, he is picked up by the authorities and ends up being put in the orphanage where Colin is.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Colin murmured, slamming the heavy knocker against the ornate door again.  “They gotta be here … Damian, _no!”_   Colin hopped off the steps and took off after his friend.  The unpaid taxi driver honked the horn after them; she was going to be so mad if she had to haul them back to the orphanage again.

Although probably not as mad as the sisters would be over the still-running meter.

“Dami-ahh-oof,” Colin’s cry was cut short as he tripped over a submerged sprinkler.  He slammed into the sod, and Damian continued to sprint ahead.  “Damian Wayne,” Colin bellowed across the lawn, not caring who heard him in that instant.  “I’m telling Batman!”

Damian almost fell over his own feet stopping that abruptly, but turned the momentum into some kind of perfectly-executed flip that Colin couldn’t have managed on purpose with a fully intact cranium … let alone in Damian’s current state.

Colin picked himself up and brushed off his clothes before moving to collect his now-docile friend.  So far the threat of Batman had curbed Damian’s behaviour beautifully, but sooner or later Damian would remember that he never bothered to listen to Batman either.

If he didn’t develop said-suicidal streak right here and now, Colin speculated, judging by the mutinous and not-at-all repentant expression on the other boy’s face.  He held out his hand, and waited for Damian to take it.  That was one thing that hadn’t changed; no one touched Damian without his permission.

The man from CPS had tried to pretend that the bite was no big deal, but Colin knew the damage Damian could inflict.  Damian had been an assassin before he became a hero, and the memories were kind of scrambled now.

Colin was offering his hand anyway.

“I’m not sorry,” Colin informed the other boy matter-of-factly when Damian still didn’t take it.  “You keep trying to ditch me.”

Damian made an aggrieved noise, but reached out to grip his companion’s sleeve.  Colin didn’t take it personally, and led the other boy back across the lawn and away from the creepy spires of white stone towering over the rest of the cemetery.  Colin did not need to see his best friend’s name on a headstone any more than Damian needed to see the grave he had crawled out of.

They hadn’t made it back to the house when Titus flew around the corner towards them with an unfamiliar red-headed lady on the other end of the Great Dane’s leash, swearing up a storm.  “Were you two the ones making all the ruckus?” she shouted as she tried to wrestle the dog to a standstill.  Titus was having none of it, straining until the lead snapped in two.

Colin dove out of the way.  Damian opened his arms.

As Colin brushed himself off a second time, he decided that it hadn’t been a cowardly move.  Titus and Damian both looked blissfully happy as they rolled about the lawn.  If the woman wanted to risk life and limb in separating the two of them, that was up to her.  Colin was not responsible for the poor decisions of superheroes.

Colin quietly ran through Gotham’s vigilante community, trying to place her as the woman struggled to pry Titus off Damian.

“Hey, kid, are you alright?” she demanded, shoving Titus aside with her whole body.  The Great Dane flopped over onto his side in anticipation of a belly rub as Damian blinked lazily up at his would-be rescuer.  “Kid, are you— _Damian?!”_

She started to reach out and then snatched her hand back as anyone familiar with Damian Wayne would, only creeping forward again when Damian held still and closed his eyes.  She traced the healing gash along his hairline and the mottled edge of fading bruises with a thunderous expression on her face.

Colin knew how that felt.  She should see the matching scars on Damian’s back and chest.  Colin had wanted to spend a few hours as Abuse when he first saw those.

“At least he isn’t dead anymore,” Colin offered helpfully.  That was good news, and Gotham’s heroes needed good news.  With any luck, the woman could get Mr. Wayne for them—

She whipped around.  “What do you mean, _anymore?!”_

Oops.


	5. Do the Astronauts have Weapons?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 562
> 
> Title Credit: Joss Whedon’s Angel.
> 
> Prompt: Written for kiragecko’s little sister – One of the brothers is taking Titus for a walk when the dog recognizes Damian’s scent.

Tim hurried through the underbrush, letting words slip that Alfred would be astonished to hear as branches smacked him in the face and tore at his clothes, but refused to do him the solid favor of catching the leash that Titus trailed behind him.

If he lost that dog, Bruce might …

“Titus,” Tim shouted, as if any dog trained by Damian Wayne would give his command a second thought.  There was a reason that Tim avoided pets, avoided this specific kind of responsibility, avoided the very alive reminders of a very dead little boy.  Tim sped up.  _“Titus!”_

It had seemed okay at first with Titus behaving in the same model fashion that the giant animal displayed when Alfred or the petite dog-walker was on the other end of the leash.  Strolling around the yard twice, a loop around the cemetery for good measure, and Tim refused to analyze the grieving patterns of canines.

Then Titus stopped, sniffed the air, and promptly decided that he no longer wanted to be a Great Dane; Titus much preferred a Blood Hound.

Tim hadn’t expected it.  He had actually stared in dumbfounded amusement for a costly minute as Titus streaked away and into the woods.

“Titus!” Tim yelled again, expelling air and name together as he burst into the clearing where Bruce liked to take them camping from time to time.  It should be empty this time of year, but Tim very narrowly avoids falling into a recently-used fire pit and crashes into an insulated tent instead.

“That any Titan can use your name and the word ‘grace’ in the same sentence fills me with grave concern, Drake.”

“Go away, Damian,” Tim muttered, extricating himself from the mess he made and poking the material suspiciously.

“Tt,” his younger brother muttered as Titus offered a sympathetic whine.

Tim stilled.  The voice wasn’t in his head the way Damian had been for months now, offering critique and childish counsel on Tim’s every action.  Very slowly, lest he spook the dog, Tim turned to face said-owner of the voice.

Damian was standing across the campfire with Titus’s lead in one hand and a firm grasp on the animal’s collar with the other.  He was bundled up in weather-appropriate gear sans boots.  He had probably been in the tent before Titus arrived on the scene.

Tim stared.  Damian stared back.

Tim slowly moved across the campground and held out his hand for the lead.  Damian surrendered it.

Tim reached out and poked his younger brother in the forehead.

“I am not a ghost, Drake,” Damian sputtered in protest, smacking Tim’s hand away.

“Okay,” Tim responded, amazed at how level his voice was as he looked back and forth from the boy to the camp to the dog and back again.  He did a few mental calculations.  “Okay.”

And then, Tim reached out and caught up his little brother, tossing the brat over his shoulder for the long trek back to the mansion.  Damian stiffened in either protest or preparation to attack, but Tim gave the younger boy a firm shake and Damian subsided with a heat-less growl.

“You are so grounded,” Tim decided objectively, as Titus—perfectly docile now—led the way home.


	6. When It's Not Worth Dying For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 560
> 
> Title Credit: Green Day’s “21 Guns”
> 
> Prompt: Written for angryriceball - Since when has any Robin stayed out of a battle when ordered to? How about each of Damian’s siblings taking precautions to keep him out of the fight entirely because they have each been in that situation where they ignored the “stay here” order and it ended badly for them?

Damian came storming back from the locker room without the desired articles of clothing, but not entirely empty-handed. “My uniforms,” he seethed, “are missing, Pennyworth.”

"Oh dear," Alfred sympathized.

"This," Damian waved the crowbar for emphasis, "was in their place."

Alfred gave his youngest charge a grim little smile. “I’m afraid that Master Jason’s sense of humor eludes me at times.”

Damian stared at the butler for a long moment. Then the ten year old drew himself up to his full height and marched across the Cave. “My apologies, Pennyworth,” he announced, swinging the crowbar into the glass memorial case and repossessing his older brother’s suit for the third time in his life.

"Not at all, Master Damian," Alfred offered blandly, "I have taken to purchasing the memorial cases in bulk."

It was a mix of uniform and street clothes that Damian donned as he headed for the lower levels where the wide assortment of vehicles were stored, and Alfred watched as the boy tried first one and then another. When they proved to be locked despite the safety of the Cave, Damian tried the fingerprint and retinal scans. When neither gained him admittance to a vehicle, he tried his access codes—and then, Alfred presumed—Master Richard’s access codes.

_Access Denied._

Frustrated, the boy wheeled about and Alfred suspected Damian might settle for one of the civilian cars as he approached the nearest Cave exit. He offered a word of caution regarding Master Bruce’s sophisticated voice recognition security that the boy waved aside.

He had to admit that the child’s impression of Master Bruce was spot on, but the doors remained shut.

Damian repeated the code, and when the doors still refused to give way, the boy whirled to face Alfred. “I am a faultless mimic!” Damian shouted.

Alfred quietly approached and knelt beside the child with a hand to Damian’s shoulder. “Master Timothy remembered,” the butler provided gently. “He insisted upon reprograming the security system with his mother’s voice.”

Damian stared. He had never met the woman; due to Master Timothy’s unique circumstances, no files on her were available for the younger vigilante to access.

“You are not the first Robin to disobey, Master Damian.”

"Tt," the child expelled in a pained breath. "Imbeciles."

He pushed away Alfred’s hands, returning to the Bat Computer. The butler allowed him to go, confident that Damian would not be able to hack past defenses specifically set against him … but Damian didn’t even try.

"What is this … ?" Alfred trailed off as the boy pulled up a different set of programs, accessed unfamiliar files, and began bouncing Master Timothy’s transmissions to frequencies that were not used by Batman, Inc.

"I am sending them assistance," Damian allowed tightly, "whether they want it or not. Gordon. Cain. Brown. Kyle." His fingers flew over the keyboard. "Black Canary. Huntress. Zatanna." Damian frowned, and repositioned a satellite with a single keystroke. "The Teen Titans. The Outsiders." A very small smile began to light Robin’s face under the mask. "The Justice League."

Alfred tried not to betray his approval; Master Bruce would be quite unbearable for weeks as it was.

"Oops," the boy murmured with pleasure as he pressed one final key. "Now my Grandfather is loose."

"Oh dear," Alfred offered with mock consolation, placing both hands proudly on the child’s shoulders. "These things happen."


	7. Just Follow the Screams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 1,294
> 
> Title Credit: Jurassic Park: The Lost World
> 
> Prompt: Written for Anonymous – Can I request that he was resurrected, but had amnesia? So he spends so long trying piecing things together to find out where he’s from and what happened and after he puts everything together (which takes a while cause of secret IDs and stuff) he goes back and finds Dick first?

The signal was the start.

Damian automatically shoved back from the dinner table, meal abandoned, and made it as far as the window before his foster mother’s voice registered.

There was nowhere else to go.

Damian stared up at the silhouette of the Bat high above the city as one of the younger children came to stand beside him.

“Haven’t you ever seen the Bat Signal before?” the bespectacled child asked sweetly as Damian absently lifted her into his arms.  She reached out as if she could touch it with her fingertips and Damian took a cautious step back from the window just in case.  “Batman’s coming.”

“Batman is coming,” their foster mother agreed.  Damian had not noticed the woman’s approach.  She took the child from him, shepherding them back to the table.  “So we’ll just let Batman do what he does best while we finish our supper.  If everyone’s homework is done, we’ll watch a movie before bed.”

That met with enthusiastic approval from the others, but Damian couldn’t help stealing glances out the window until the signal went dark.

*****

“Rob!  Hey, Rob, wait up!”

Damian stilled as the football player approached, but couldn’t help flinching when a large hand came down to muss his hair.

“Oh, crap, you’re not Robert,” the smiling man recanted, smoothing Damian’s hair and patting his shoulder.  “Sorry, kiddo.”

Damian watched the college student move on with a frown on his face; his name wasn’t Rob.  Damian knew that much.

He had heard someone else addressed that way though, and the memory rankled with possessive fury.

*****

The Teen Titans were on the television again.

The two oldest foster children were mooning over spandex-clad backsides and setting a horrible example for the younger ones.  In an effort to provide a more responsible role model and teach the younger children some sense of tactics, Damian took it upon himself to point out particularly well-performed moves.

Not that there were many of those; it was only the _Titans_ after all.

Red Robin made a late appearance, swooping down on the scene in that ridiculous costume and Gotham’s children squealed to see their city represented.  Damian was less than impressed with _that idiot Drake, always taking the bird-metaphor too far._

And that was a piece of the puzzle that Damian could use.

*****

Unfortunately, there was only one Drake left in Gotham, and Timothy Drake-Wayne turned out to be an utterly boring dead end.  The only thing the klutzy prince of Gotham had in common with Red Robin was the dark hair, and Damian doubted that anyone—affable socialite or incompetent hero—could manage to successfully run both Wayne Enterprises and the Teen Titans.

No, the Waynes were very likely still funding the Bats, but Damian doubted any of them were capable of joining the vigilante game.

*****

He looks at the newest Sword Walkers game with longing, but there is no money for such things, and the rating would deter any responsible adult guardian.

*****

It’s late, but they had missed the bus from the campus library and taken a wrong turn somewhere.  Now he found himself in the bad part of town with four hapless classmates as darkness crept in.

Two phones dead from excessive gaming rather than studying, one could only reach his father’s voice-mail, one without a signal, and Damian had no mobile device of his own.  He shook the offending smart phone as if that would improve the signal, and giving up, thrust it in the direction of its owner.

Taking charge, Damian tried to herd the group out of the streetlight’s glow.  The stupid civilians saw safety in the light.  Damian saw a target painted on their shiny new clothes and little blonde heads.

It took the appearance of actual thugs to get them moving, and if any of the men and women had guns, Damian was certain they would all be dead by now.

“Crime … Alley,” he panted, directing them to the left.

One of the gamers actually stopped to argue with him, hands thrown wide as she demanded verification of his sanity.  Damian grabbed her arm, and dragged her along.

“The Red Hood,” he gasped out, annoyed at how out of shape he was.

The name alone was enough to make one boy cry, but Damian held to his course with the knowledge only a very few understood.

_Crime Alley.  Red Hood.  Safety._

*****

His essay on Alexander earned him full marks, although there were marks in the margin as if the teacher set his pen down to question Damian’s inclusion of some obscure factoid and then thought better of it.

It wasn’t Damian’s fault that otherwise-educated people insisted upon misquoting Plutarch, or that some of Alexander’s actions were not considered age-appropriate information.

*****

The insult made his foster brother bristle on his behalf, but it meant nothing to Damian.  He had no memory of his heritage.  His eyes were blue, and his accent was British in moments of high emotion or stress, but Damian could still have ancestors from the Middle East or he could simply be very tan.

The words the bully spat out said more about the teenager’s ignorance than they did Damian’s possible origins, and Damian said as much.

The sloppy punch was so broadly telegraphed that Damian couldn’t imagine why the older student thought that it would connect.  It was simple enough to catch _—and-twist, apply-leverage, push—_ and then Damian stood there with the teenager forced to the ground by the pressure exerted on the arm twisted behind his back.

Damian didn’t remember doing that.  He didn’t remember knowing how to do that.

His foster-brother speculated that perhaps Damian was a ninja.  Ridiculous.

*****

He saw the television announcement when the rest of the world did.  Dick Grayson’s face and name were no longer hidden under the Nightwing persona as the Waynes closed ranks with almost military precision.

Damian stared at the back of the man’s head on his way into the limo, and _Nightwing_ isn’t the name that leaps to mind.

Damian once called him _Batman_.

*****

He had to bide his time.  He had to wait for the villains to be apprehended, and for the media frenzy to die down.  He had to put a few more pieces together, and eventually he had to wait for Grayson to move back out of the Manor and into some more readily-accessible apartment.

He didn’t remember everything, but Grayson would have answers.

Damian pressed the intercom, and tried to instill confidence in his appearance and voice when a female voice demanded what he wanted with “Dick.”  She didn’t give him time to answer, before reciting the same anti-reporter spiel that Damian had gotten from the butler at the Manor.

Damian hadn’t quite dared to argue his case over the phone; it was only an educated guess after all.

“It’s Robin.”

There was a moment of utter stillness before the woman started demanding things that Damian didn’t know how to answer.  Her voice swiftly faded from notice, however, as someone crashed through the security door as if he had not been three floors up only moments earlier, practically falling over himself to grab Damian up in an unexpected hug.

Damian allowed the liberty for now.

At some point, the embrace devolved into the less-than-graceful man—former acrobat and vigilante, _hah_ —crouching in front of Damian and staring unabashedly.  Unlike his female counterpart, he asked no questions, and Damian bit back his.

 _Another_ hug, and the man—Dick, Richard, _Grayson_ —moved as if to guide Damian inside.  The man turned red upon encountering the security door, scrubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand as he sheepishly turned to the intercom.

“Um, Babs, mind letting us back in?”


	8. All Swallowed in Their Coats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 923
> 
> Title Credit: Fleet Fox’s “White Winter Hymnal” (although inspired by the Pentatonix cover)
> 
> Prompt: Written for angryriceball - Damian seeking out Colin once he comes back, and for anonymous - Damian’s first encounter with Colin after his return.

Colin trudged through the slushy build-up on the sidewalks after the younger kids.

It hadn’t been a good day, and Colin wasn’t looking forward to explaining his current shiner to Sister Mary Margaret.

Bullies happened.  Colin couldn’t let them get away with it.

Abuse _wouldn’t_ let them get away with it.

Some days, school just seemed less and less worth it as Colin began thinking more and more about retreating into his Abuse identity for good.

It wasn’t like Colin Wilkes had anyone left, he thought glumly as he brought the whole procession to a halt long enough to break up a fight and tie a shoe.  His best friend was gone, he still didn’t have adoptive parents, and the nuns …

… well, as much as the nuns appreciated Colin’s good nature and willingness to help, the orphanage was only licensed for children under twelve and Colin would soon age out of their care.  He might end up with foster parents if there was an available opening or he could be sent to one of the group homes on the other side of the city.

It was a toss up.

Colin shouldered one of the little kid’s bags as it got “too heavy” and juggled the extra weight as he fought with the big iron gate at the front of the property.  The redhead ushered the little kids inside and was careful to lock the gate behind him exactly the way that Sister Anna had shown him.

As if it wasn’t bad enough they had to worry about the various Rogues in Gotham, St. Agnes frequently had to deal with less visible predators and even the occasional non-custodial parent.  For some reason, some individuals thought they could get around Child Protective Services by taking their chances with the kindly nuns of St. Agnes.

Luckily for the children in their care, no one in Gotham—not even a nun—was completely helpless.

Still, Colin (and Abuse) liked to keep a special watch in their own way, and Colin had just enough specialized detective training to notice certain inconsistencies …

… inconsistencies like the prints in the snow that were too big to belong to the small herd of first graders currently trooping up the front steps.  They weren’t the nuns’ prints either.  These prints had been made by a flat men’s shoe with good tread.

Colin immediately dropped his bag in the snow and took off around the building in the direction of the tracks.  Unfortunately, his sneakers weren’t necessarily meant for this kind of weather, and Colin hit a patch of ice that almost put him flat on his back.  He caught himself against the building and gazed out over the snow-covered yard.

There.

There was a dark-haired boy in an expensive coat standing under the barren trees just across the way … a very familiar dark-haired boy.  Colin’s words caught in his throat, producing only a broken gurgle instead.

The boy—Damian—glanced up at him for a moment, and then returned to his serious study of the snow beneath his feet.

 _Not possible_ , Colin’s brain insisted.  _Not possible_.

_Don’t care._

Colin took off again and hit Damian at full speed.  They both ended up on the ground, but Colin won the brief struggle, locking his arms around his best friend and refusing to let go for anything

His vision was all blurry, but in a way that had nothing to do with Colin’s black eye or even the cold sting of snow in his face.  He should be horrified to be crying (and he would be … _later_ ), but Damian didn’t mock him for it.  In fact, the sniffling sounds only made Damian go limp in Colin’s desperate grasp.

After a long moment, Damian hesitantly patted Colin on the back a few times.  When that proved ineffective, Damian dropped his hand and let his head fall back against the ground with a dull thud.  “This is so undignified, Wilkes.”

"Don’t care," Colin retorted, but he let the other boy go long enough for them to right themselves and hopefully regain their bearings.  He swiped at his eyes irritably, but that only made the problem worse as well as drawing attention to his black eye.

The obvious bruising gave Damian a far too-serious frown as he absently brushed himself off.  “What happened to your face?”

“What happened to _your_ face?” Colin shot back with false cheer.  His jacket was probably a lost cause, so he reached out to brush some snow from Damian’s hair instead.

He was taller than Robin now, Colin realized suddenly.  By a couple of inches actually … and didn’t that make a terrible sort of sense, because Colin was _older_ than Robin too.

Damian had been dead for almost a _year_.

The other boy was eyeing him warily now.  “You’re not going to hug me again, are you?”

Colin choked on a sudden laugh.  “Probably.”

Damian sighed heavily, closing his eyes and holding out his arms as if in surrender.

 _Stupid, spoiled, rich kids that didn’t know how to **hug**_ , Colin thought fondly, tugging the other boy into a proper hug this time and tucking the dark head against his shoulder for good measure.

Damian sighed again, but with less exasperation and more resignation this time around.  It was a good sound.

“I missed you,” Colin whispered at last.

Damian nodded carefully against his shoulder, both hands clenched in Colin’s jacket.  “Me too.”

> _Then I turn round and there you go!_
> 
> _And Michael, you would fall,_
> 
> _And turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summer time._


	9. Certain Bullets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 1,446
> 
> Title Credit: Joss Whedon’s Firefly; Episode 1.1 - Serenity
> 
> Prompt: Written for anonymous - "Damian and Dick being reunited after Damian’s resurrection."

Damian didn’t find out Father and Grayson’s deceit for a very long time.

When Grayson’s mission finally came to its rather explosive end, Father had sat Damian down and explained everything.  He was given all the facts and even the opportunity to ask any and all of his own questions.

Damian didn’t quite dare to ask too many of those.  Coming back from the dead had made Damian take things a little more seriously, and he saw no value in inspecting the teeth of a free horse.

Fate had seen fit to restore Damian’s lost brother to him; who was he to argue?

He had a few days to assimilate everything properly and therefore plenty of time to prepare himself as Father went about the necessary steps of extracting Grayson from deep cover and international medical facilities.

Damian was so prepared that he had even been able to wait patiently for his turn, urging the others to go ahead and have their moment with the unexpected prodigal son.  It wasn’t like Damian wouldn’t have Grayson all to himself for the duration of the man’s recovery, he reasoned, and Gordon had been decidedly soggy both before and after her fifteen minutes at Grayson’s bedside.

Girls, Damian had thought scornfully as the redhead tried to hide her reddened eyes, always making things more complicated than they need to be.

Damian had truly thought that he was ready to see Grayson.

So it honestly surprised Damian that the very first thing he wanted to do upon catching sight of that familiar face … was to punch it.

And then maybe to do it again.

Three good swings, tops.

Grayson wasn’t really in a fit state to be taking punches, however, and Damian contented himself with three small words that packed an even meaner wallop.

“I hate you,” he had whispered, and the quiet vehemence behind it shocked them both.  Damian heard a strangled gasp from the hall and felt a strange satisfaction in the way that Grayson’s tentative smile just slid right off his face.  “I hate _you_ ,” he repeated for good measure.

It wasn’t good enough, really, because Grayson wasn’t dead.  He had _never_ been dead—not for real.  Not for long.  It had all been a lie.

Damian’s grief was a _lie_.  All those secret times when he had cried into Titus’ fur where no one could see him, and all the nights where he had climbed into Father’s empty bed for cold comfort, and the photographs that he had stolen from Drake and then they had fought terribly over it … everything had been a horrible, ugly _lie_.

“Drake left,” Damian reported vindictively.  “He went back to the Titans, because he couldn’t even bear to look at you.  And you made Gordon cry, you ass.  Twice.  And Pennyworth is abusing his sleeping pills when he thinks no one is looking, and I will _not_ give back your ecrisma sticks even if I do not want them anymore.  I’ll sell them on the internet,” he declared.  “There is a black market for that sort of thing, you know, and … and …”

“Alright,” Todd interrupted, grabbing Damian as if to pull him from the room.  “That’s enough.”

“And … and …” Damian continued to resist for a moment before suddenly realizing the ultimate revenge and throwing his arms around the larger man instead.  “Drake and Todd are better brothers than you!”

It seemed to echo in the quiet room.

“Oh, geez,” Todd muttered to himself, releasing Damian in favor of sinking into the only available chair and cradling his head in both hands.  “Really, demon brat?”

Damian ignored Todd, taking a step closer to the bed and its unnervingly quiet occupant.  “They are,” he insisted.  “The best actually.”

It was a lie of course.  Once the novelty of Damian’s resurrection had worn off, they had returned to their usual activities and preferred companions.  The eleven year old had scarcely even seen them over the last few months—only a mission here and there, the occasional last minute layover or enforced period of convalescence, and an occasional intergalactic souvenir in the mail.

They had still come for Damian.  So had Gordon.  They had gone into hell itself to help Father bring him back, and Grayson _hadn’t_.  Grayson had been busy pretending to be dead, and Damian found that he could and _did_ hate the older man for it.

So he said it again:  “I hate you.”

And Grayson nodded, looking small and particularly un-Batman-like as he sat curled up on himself in the middle of an oversized bed.  “That’s okay,” Grayson agreed carefully.  “Right now, I kind of hate myself too.”

Damian didn’t stick around after that.

* * *

 

It was very early the next time that Damian ventured into Grayson’s temporary quarters after a particularly unsatisfying patrol.

He was barely speaking with Father and Todd had turned down his petition to join the Outlaws.  While strangely sympathetic, Drake had also refused his bid to rejoin the Titans and Gordon’s feigned civilian life was a catastrophe waiting to happen … which left Damian standing in the hallway just outside Grayson’s door. 

Not to apologize, of course, but simply to ascertain that Grayson was still there to be angry _with_ in the first place.

So the empty bed predictably sent a sudden chill through the boy.

“Grayson!” he demanded, flying across the room to bang on the bathroom door.  When he got no response, Damian’s eyes darted to the open window.

“I’m telling Pennyworth,” Damian muttered under his breath, but he hopped over the sill and climbed down the tree as the former acrobat must have done.  “Grayson!”

There.

Grayson was halfway to the cemetery and not too steady on his feet either.  Damian took off after him.

“Richard John Grayson,” the eleven year old seethed once he was in reach, “have you or have you not been confined to bed?”

“Maybe?” the man smiled a lopsided kind of smile, but accepted the unspoken offer of a human crutch.  “It’s just a quick errand.”

“To the cemetery?” Damian snorted, attempting to steer the man back the way they came.

“Just gotta pick something up real quick,” Grayson protested, dragging his feet.

Damian was about to demand when Grayson had added obvious brain damage to his already impressive list of injuries when it all clicked.

“Is this about the Swordwalkers game?” Damian demanded.

Grayson’s shoulders fell.  “Found it already, huh?”

“Father found it,” Damian informed him archly.  And promptly confiscated it, he thought with a touch of bitterness.  “Did you really think that I could be _bribed_ , Grayson?  With a _video game_?”

“Seemed like a good start,” Grayson murmured.  The man was deliberately making himself heavier, Damian thought crossly as he shouldered more of his former mentor’s weight.  “And easier to get ahold of than the pony.”

“What nonsense are you spouting—Grayson!” Damian squawked as the man twisted suddenly to fold Damian into a surprise hug.  The movement nearly caused them both to go down.  With his patience rapidly dwindling, Damian was only seconds away from putting his brother on the ground and leaving him there.  “Grayson, I insist you release me this—”

“I’m sorry,” Grayson breathed softly, stirring Damian’s hair with his words.  “So, so sorry.”

Damian was surprised to find his mouth shut and his traitorous fingers clenched tightly in the man’s sweatshirt.  He was still angry of course, but it burned low in his belly and behind his eyes now instead of hot in his throat like yesterday.  Grayson did that to him sometimes, and it wasn’t fair.

“Well, you _should_ be,” Damian said at last, letting his forehead thump softly against his brother’s injured chest.

Grayson only clutched him closer.

“My forgiveness won’t be cheap,” Damian insisted even though his voice was tight and his eyes stung with unshed tears.  It was the principle of the matter really.

“Of course not,” Grayson agreed without an ounce of laughter in his voice.  “I’ll work on that.”

His hand began moving in slow circles over Damian’s back, soothing the last of the tension from the boy hero’s shoulders.  Damian allowed the man take some of his weight as Grayson had never been one to let mere physical injury keep him from doing whatever the man darn well wanted to do.

“Hey,” Dick murmured softly, hefting Damian into his arms properly, “you think I could maybe reclaim my best brother status?  Someday?”

“Perhaps,” Damian laid his head against Grayson’s shoulder and closed his eyes, “but only because Drake and Todd are such pathetic competition.”


	10. Never Trust a Vowel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 575
> 
> Title Credit: Jerry Spinelli’s "Maniac Magee"
> 
> Prompt: Written for anonymous — "all I want for Christmas is Damian not realizing how much Tim was upset by his death. And then finding out."

“I will _not_ watch my brother die _again!”_

The words seemed to linger in the cold air above Gotham, and Tim instantly wished that he could take them back again … take them back and tuck them deep inside where no one could take aim at this awful, unexpected weakness.

Instead, Tim very carefully and deliberately released his mentor’s cape.  He took first one step back and then another.

He wasn’t able to take things back any more than he had been able to refrain from screeching like a dying animal at the mere sight of Damian in Robin red like nothing had even happened.

The ugly sound had rung through the air and echoed over the comms and it had been this awful, inhuman thing that Tim tried to hide from others.

Tim could at least trust Bruce never to speak of this moment ever again.  His former mentor would brood in silence over the accusations thrown and the blows landed, but he would never mention it to anyone for any reason.  Denial was the way of the Bat.

Now if only Damian could have the decency to do the same … or to at least keep his peace long enough for Tim to put himself together again and make his escape—too much to hope for really.

“You don’t mean it.”

The voice was small, but it still stung.  Tim angrily rounded on the ten year old.  “Of course I mean it, you disgusting little troll!”

Damian flinched back, eyes automatically darting to Bruce’s stern figure.  Tim could almost hear the boy’s thoughts.

_Did he see?_

_Did Batman see?_

No, Tim could have told him if the teen had been in a more forgiving mood.  No, Batman had not seen that small moment of weakness.  Batman was understandably distracted by the ball of half-homicidal, half-suicidal rage.

Instead, Tim took a step backward as if he had the necessary height advantage to loom properly over his younger brother.  “I never wanted you dead!”

“I know that,” Damian snapped back, refusing to lose any more ground, “but we’re _not_ —”  Damian hesitated, glancing over at Commissioner Gordon who was taking in the show with obvious bemusement.

No drama like Bat drama.

Damian scowled at the man and modulated his voice accordingly, hissing: “You always said that we were _not_ brothers.”

“Yeah,” Tim returned—still too sharp, but sometimes that was the only way to deflect Damian’s cutting remarks.  “And so did you … so we’re both liars.”

Damian bristled at the perceived slight, and Tim waited—still angry, still weary, and still committed to keeping the repugnant little monster alive—for the return fire.  Oddly enough, it never came.  Damian must have finally seen something genuine in Tim’s overture, because all the fight seemed to go out of the boy.

“Yes.”  Damian said at last, clearing his throat and looking away.  “Yes, we both lied.”

It wasn’t an epiphany.  It wasn’t forgiveness.  It wasn’t even a ceasefire, and it certainly wasn’t the emotional embrace that Tim had sometimes envisioned in his grief.

That was okay; they had never been that kind of brothers and probably never would be.

Mostly because Damian picked that exact moment to open his mouth yet again:

“I would be somewhat averse to witnessing your death as well, Red Robin.  Kindly cease and desist flinging yourself off of tall buildings and at obviously superior warriors.”

> _Consonants, you know pretty much where you stood, but you could never trust a vowel._


	11. Wrong Lever!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 725
> 
> Title Credit: Disney’s "The Emperor’s New Groove"
> 
> Prompt: Written for anonymous - "A reunion between Damian and Stephanie?"
> 
> Author’s Note: This disregards Batman Eternal and the entire idea that Steph is only just starting out on her hero career in the New 52.

Damian had scarcely returned to his usual routines when Stephanie Brown rejoined the vigilante world once more.

As befitting the plucky heroine of mishap and mayhem, she made her return particularly memorable by mistaking him for someone else and pitching them both into an inconvenient duck pond mid-mugging in the park.

Fortunately, the victim took advantage of the distraction to activate her taser, render her assailant insensible and take off for the safety of more intelligent company.

Damian, sadly, could not do the same.

He had resurfaced from the murky water sputtering and swearing.  Brown’s own rant had been curtailed by the unexpected dunking, and she seemed moderately calmer by the time she broke the surface, slicking both her hair and hood back neatly with the action.

They tread water in mutual misery for a few precious moments, and then Damian said something quite rude to the older hero.

Inexplicably, this caused Brown’s face to nearly split in two as a side-effect of her widest smile.

Temporarily stunned by the sheer power of that sunny expression turned on him, Damian was unprepared for the blonde to launch herself at his person and take them both under the water once more.

“What is _wrong_ with you?!” Damian roared the moment that he was able to properly articulate once more.  It had less of an intimidation effect than he would have liked, considering that he was small, wet, and bedraggled.

Brown’s insufferable grin stretched from ear to ear.

“You’re alive!” she shouted back at him with obvious glee.  “You’re really alive!”

“Of course I’m alive, Fatgirl!” Damian howled.  “Who _else_ would be running around Gotham Park in a Robin costume?”

“Didn’t know,” she shrugged in response, a dark look passing over her face so swiftly that Damian thought he might have only imagined it.  “Didn’t care.  It’s _you_.”

Damian stared at her, rendered temporarily speechless by the thought patterns of women—this woman in particular.  Then he did the only logical thing that remained to a ten year old standing in four and a half feet of pond water and muck:

He splashed her.

The ensuing water war was quite spectacular as Brown gave as good as she got.

When they finally waded out of the shallows and crash-landed on the muddy bank a few feet away from the unconscious crook, Damian was disgusted to find her broad smile fully intact.

Even worse, Damian suspected that the expression was now mirrored on his own face.  He immediately schooled his features into a more neutral gaze.

Having divested herself of a new homemade monstrosity of a cloak, Brown flopped over onto her stomach so that she could commence staring at him without an ounce of shame or reservation.

“You’re alive,” she murmured.

“You’ve said that already,” Damian sighed, rolling his eyes and repeating his earlier question: “What _is_ wrong with you?”

She didn’t answer right away.  She simply reached out to trace the edge of his domino with a foolishly content expression on her face, but weariness in her eyes.

“Absolutely nothing,” she said at last.  “You’re alive and I am so glad to see you, Boy Wonder.”

“You tried to drown me,” Damian muttered, ducking her painfully honest gaze.  “In a duck pond,” he added, trying to convey the massive insult her efforts had been to the very practice of attempted homicide.  “ _Twice_.”

“Not on purpose,” Brown assured him, getting up to wring out her hair and possibly handle the stirring mugger.

Unlikely—Damian was slow to credit his some-time partner with any degree of competence.

“Of course not,” he allowed magnanimously even as the ten year old followed Brown’s lead.  “You were aiming for my _entirely theoretical_ successor.”

His cape, he suspected, was beyond restoring to full function—at least whilst in the field—but Damian dutifully set to squeezing excess water from the heavy material anyway.

“And the second attempt?  How _do_ you explain that?”

“Happy accident,” she chirped in pseudo innocence, running a gloved hand carefully through the wet hair plastered to his skull.  Suspecting designs on his dignity (likely in the form of a makeshift Mohawk), Damian shook her off and opened his mouth to argue further.

It did him no good; Brown easily silenced the attempt by swiftly leaning in to smack a resounding kiss against his filthy forehead.

“Welcome back, Robin.”


End file.
